Is The Death of Web Journalism Already Here?
Edelman exec Steve Rubel recently wrote a bold column, asserting “It’s Time to Prepare for the End of the Web as We Know It.”
I know what you’re thinking. Didn’t Web journalism just get here? It may seem like it did, as least to traditional journalists who were shamefully slow to react to the emergence of the Web as a viable place to publish content.
But in this fast moving world, the shift of one technology to the next is happening faster than could have been thought possible in the past. And so by 2015, more people will use the Internet on their phones than on the computers, according to a Morgan Stanley survey quoted by Rubel. Study after study shows this trend will soon apply to journalism, too.
It appears that just as the media has adopted to publishing on the Web, the medium is shifting away from them (Then newspaper I work for, The Orange County Register, is currently “Web-first” — reporters write primarily for the website and then the best of that is taken for the print product. What is next - “phone-first”?)
Frankly, as a journalist, I’m saddened by this development. Reading news on a computer instead of a paper is one thing, but on a phone? People mostly scroll inattentively through their phone when they’re bored. What kind of attention will actually be paid to news?
But there are (apparently) good things about this. First, it seems that for once the media has actually been on top of this trend. Publications like the New York Times have already developed very popular and effective iPhone apps (this is even expanding, quickly, to college campuses. My college paper, The Daily Northwestern, will probably be trying to get an app this year).
Even better, there is a growing feeling among digital journalists like Kendall Allen that mobile devices provide an opportunity for journalism to absolve itself of its greatest sin: giving away content on the Internet for free.
Many people blame that decision, made by media execs at the front of the race to the Web, as the reason why nobody can ever charge anything for news online. After all, it’s very difficult to make something cost money when it’s been free in the past and is still free at most places (we’ve seen what has happened with subscriptions - Newsday famously garnered just 35 in the first three months of their paywall).
As less people read news online and more people read it on their phone, it gives journalists a chance to do things right: by charging for content. It appears this is the way the model will take shape.
Whether is saves journalism, only time will tell. But one thing’s for sure: “time” won’t be very long.
